THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE RISE OF A NEW ANTI-WESTERN GLOBAL ORDER

[Wunder-Zeichen]

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE RISE OF
A NEW ANTI-WESTERN GLOBAL ORDER

THE REAL MOTIVATION BEHIND IRAN'S DEAL
WITH SAUDI ARABIA

The agreement is about far more than just normalizing ties with Riyadh.

Foreign Policy: The China-brokered agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia announced last month generated huge buzz, with some observers going as far as proclaiming it a victory for international security. But much of the analysis has missed a key point: For Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the deal is about far more than normalizing ties with the Saudi government in Riyadh. Instead, it is about further facilitating, along with China and Russia, the rise of a new anti-Western global order and excluding the United States from a new regional arrangement.

Indeed, from the view of Khamenei and the IRGC, restoring ties with Saudi Arabia is the least important aspect of the deal. What’s most important is that it’s one more milestone toward achieving the regime’s grand ambitions—this time with powerful friends. The 83-year-old supreme leader, like his predecessor, believes a clash of civilizations has long existed between the so-called Islamic world and the West. The long-term project of the Islamic Revolution has been to restore an Islamic civilization, with Iran’s Shiite Islamists at the helm. In the modern era, the United States and the liberal international order it leads have always been seen as the ultimate obstacle—the Great Satan—standing in the way of achieving that goal. And for the Islamic Republic’s 44 years of existence, the regime has concentrated all its resources on shaking the very core of the West’s legitimacy. In recent years, this aim has come to bind Khamenei with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—each unlikely bedfellows.

Whether or not China and Russia are fully invested in this ideological troika, it is clear Iran’s regime is all in. Khamenei sees an Islamic civilization led by Iran, a Russo-Slavic civilization led by Russia, and a Confucius-communist civilization led by China all at war with Western civilization—and he thinks now is the best chance they’ve had in decades to uproot the West. Khamenei’s close circle and the IRGC genuinely believe the U.S.-led liberal world order is collapsing and a new anti-Western order led by China, Russia, and Iran is taking shape. As recent as November 2022, Khamenei outlined a vision of a new order based on “the isolation of the United States, the transfer of power to Asia, [and] the expansion of the [anti-West] resistance front” led by the Islamic Republic. This is the lens through which Khamenei supports Putin’s war in Ukraine—and why he has gone all in on providing military support to Russia. It’s also how Tehran views the China-brokered Iran-Saudi deal. Hard-line regime officials in Iran have confirmed this. After the deal was signed, Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior IRGC commander and military advisor to Khamenei, asserted that the post-U.S. era in the region has begun and the deal was “China’s second biggest blow to the U.S.”

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[Wunder-Zeichen]

THE 'BALKANIZATION' OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

‘Dr. Doom’ Nouriel Roubini warns of painful stagflation caused by a new cold war
with China and the ‘balkanization’ of the global economy

Warren Buffett says the threat of war was a ‘consideration’ in his decision to dump the bulk of his $4 billion stake in chipmaker giant TSMC

Ukraine's top general last year warned that a 'limited' nuclear war can't be ruled out —
here's what Warren Buffett says about the 'greatest danger' facing the US and the world

Commerce to suffer from unwinding efficient global supply chains

After the collapse of the West’s last systemic rival, the Soviet Union, the resulting Pax Americana ushered in an economic boom based on the primacy of free markets, liberal democracy, and the rule of law. Multinational corporations could arbitrage the best of a country’s competitive advantages, whether that be research and development or cheap and plentiful labor, driving down their manufacturing costs as part of the deflationary trend toward globalization. In the process, however, these ensuing economic linkages created a web of interdependencies that now means China is the dominant supplier of critical resources like rare earth magnets, refined lithium, and monocrystalline silicon, which are needed for the green and digital transformation. The West is also reliant on Taiwan as the sole supplier of its most advanced logic chips, forcing it to arm the small island nation to deter a possible invasion by its larger neighbor across the strait.

[Wunder-Zeichen]

Land Mines Litter Ukraine
And Threaten Spring Planting

Tens of millions around the world rely on the country for grain and cooking oil,
but clearing live explosives from Russia's invasion is expensive,
and even with Buffett’s philanthropy, it's a process that can take months.

Farms in Ukraine, known as Europe's bread basket, provide grain and cooking oil for tens of millions of people around an increasingly hungry world. Now, at least 40% of the country, an area larger than the U.K., must be searched and cleared of explosives, according to HALO Trust, a U.K.-based global nonprofit which removes land mines and has worked in Ukraine since 2016. Though around 10% of that affected area is farmland, an estimated half of land-mine accidents in Ukraine stem from farm work, according to estimates from the Ukraine and U.S. governments. Toxic heavy metal from the explosive devices is often left behind.